Airbnb celebrates Pride in London with host community

To close out Pride festivities in London, Experience and Home hosts on Airbnb came together to champion the company’s mission for an entertaining evening combining informative discussions and performances celebrating the London LGBTQ+ community.

Lambeth Superhost and Home Sharing Club leader Dennis, led a discussion with popular travel influencers, Whitney and Megan. The duo more commonly known as “Wegan” are a married couple who document their love of food, travel and lifestyle online. They also make it a point to exclusively stay in queer-friendly countries.

Throughout the talk, Whitney and Megan each made a point to speak about how important safety is when travelling as a couple. “First of all, we make it a point to stay in LGBTQ-friendly countries where being gay is not a crime because we think it’s important that you should be who you are wherever you are,” Whitney said.

Megan added that, “after we got married last year we did a lot of travelling and stayed in a few Airbnb listings. It was important that we stayed in places that made us feel accepted so we did do our research before booking. It’s about trust and knowing the people you’ll be staying with will respect you and treat you like a person, that’s what’s really important to us.”

As an openly gay man, LGBTQ+ activist with decades of experience and member of the Black Gay Men’s Advisory Group, Dennis was uniquely positioned to discuss some of the complexities that face queer travellers.

As a Superhost, Dennis also offered tips for other hosts on Airbnb looking for ways to highlight that they are queer friendly to guests, “For me as a host, in my listing I’ve made sure to indicate that my home is ‘LGBTQ-friendly’ and I believe it does make a difference to those looking for a place to stay. In the picture of my kitchen on my listing, I’ve also got a rainbow flag visible in the corner. To any ordinary person looking at my pictures, they probably wouldn’t register it. But for a queer traveller, they’ll immediately spot that and know what that flag means.”

Following the chat, hosts in attendance were treated to a few special performances thanks to the Aisha, an Experience host and her incredibly talented network. Those in attendance enjoyed some comedy from Kemah Bob, a stand-up comedian and improviser who is part of the Femmes of Colour troupe. Incredible drag performances from Santi Storm and Asttina Mandella closed out the evening marking the celebration which appreciates people and their differences.